He Followed Me Home, Buffy Can I Keep Him?
by Manchester
Summary: As Faith once explained to a baby Slayer, "Kid, we don't bet on Dawn getting grabbed by a Big Bad on Tuesday. That happens way too often to lay down our money on that. No, what we bet on is how pissed Buffy gets after it's all over. So, you want in?"
1. Tuesday 1

Stalking through the front door of Dawn's apartment in the Scottish castle that was the headquarters of the International Watchers' Council, a furious Buffy Summers effortlessly held up high her sister dangling from the Slayer's right hand that was tightly gripping the collar of the other female's blouse. Dawn refrained from struggling during this extremely undignified means of transportation; instead, as she was carried to the center of the main living room, that Oxford student maintained her limp posture while irritably keeping her arms folded across her chest, in addition to retaining a very irked expression upon the Key's features.

Landing lightly upon her feet as Buffy finally let go, Dawn whirled around to confront her sister standing next to her, with the younger woman's arms unfolding and dropping to angrily place her fists on her hips, to then opening her mouth to begin yelling, except that Buffy started shouting first. "Okay, enough's enough! I've had it! From now on, next week and the week after that, and also for the rest of your whole life, you're gonna spend that day right here, with the door locked, Slayers guarding every window, vent, and chimney, and Willow's strongest wards placed on you!"

Feeling her own temper about to burst forth, Dawn retorted at her full personal volume, "It's not my fault that I keep getting kidnapped on Tuesdays!"

Buffy bellowed back, "Well, you don't have to be so carefree about it! We always get worried about you, and it doesn't make us any happier when we come to rescue you and instead find you doing things like today, when you conned your guards into a game of strip poker and won every single hand, taking them for everything down to their jockstraps!"

Despite her current mood of angry exasperation, a genuine giggle then managed to escape from Dawn, along with her sardonic comment to her simmering sister, "Hey, if you'd just waited another five minutes, I would've had their underwear, too. Those guys were totally hopeless in figuring out the odds of their card hands!"

Buffy's face actually turned light purple over hearing this, with the California native then gritting out, "That does it! I'm nailing your door shut!" As she continued glowering at her sniggering sibling, Buffy now growled towards Dawn, "All I wanted was just one nice, normal day after Monday. Was that too much to ask?"

Dawn sent back an incredulous look at Buffy before snippily responding, "Did you take a nap during all of the last decade or so of your life? We - you, me, the Scoobies, Slayers, Watchers - we don't _do_ normal!"

A grim Slayer then got up right into her sister's face and fiercely vowed, "Well, for the next couple of days, you're gonna, Dawn! You either behave like an normal girl, a totally ordinary human for the rest of the week so that I can feel like I can trust you out of my sight on Tuesdays, or I swear, I _will_ brick up your doorway and feed you through the slot!"

Ignoring Dawn's outraged expression at that ultimatum, Buffy then spun around on her heel and stomped her way out of the apartment, slamming the door behind herself. Since that panel, along with every bit of furniture and fixtures in the entire castle had been bespelled to withstand Slayer tempers, that angry gesture only produced a quiet 'thud' sound instead of the immense 'BANG!' that would have usually resulted from Buffy's furious act.

Standing in her living room, fists clenched in fury held against her sides, Dawn stuck out her tongue at the closed door for a full minute. Then, the young woman did her own stomping into her bedroom, flinging her entire body to bounce onto the bed there, and after that, Dawn grabbed her pillow to yank this towards her mouth and bit down hard upon the cushion as she gave a muffled scream of utter frustration over the sheer unfairness of it all.

Several minutes later, a sullen Dawn was at her bedroom table, moodily brushing her hair. After finishing this, she also evidently came to a decision, as the university student then glowered at her reflection seen in the makeup mirror of the table, to then snarl at the other Dawn, "Okay, this means war!"

Yanking open a drawer in the table, the Key pulled out a small plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide for disinfection purposes, a cotton pad, a box of band-aids, and a small, sharp sewing needle. Arranging all of these items on the tabletop, Dawn now smirked at the twenty-year-old in the mirror, both of these females now bearing the identical evil grin on their faces, as the original cooed out loud to herself, "So, dear, sweet Buffy wants her little sister to be normal? Well, like someone once told me, 'Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it!'"

Unwrapping a band-aid for instant use and then laying it aside, to then start disinfecting a fingertip and the point of the needle in preparation for using her blood with its capability of opening up portals throughout the entire Multiverse, Dawn held the sewing item ready in her right hand, while also sticking out her left index finger. She then immediately jabbed the needle into her flesh, causing a single drop of magical blood to well forth from her fingertip.

All to the accompaniment of a truly gloating cackle from the Key: "Buffy Summers, _normal _people have…pets!"


	2. Wednesday

"YOU STAKED MY PUPPY!"

"IT WAS A VAMPIRE DOG THAT WENT RIGHT FOR GILES' THROAT!"

"Actually, Buffy, I believe the proper classification of that thankfully extinct canine should be described as a Pomeranian that was turned…all right, all right, I'll just be toddling off now to find a bandage for my neck."

"Dawn, if you really want a pet, then find something else! And it better not be evil!"

"Fine! I'll get a cat!"

"Still kinda evil…"

* * *

Crossover: The vampire Pomeranian is from the film _Blade: Trinity _with Wesley Snipes, Ryan Reynolds, Jessica Biel, et al. There's one particularly sick and hilarious moment in that movie when the dog's owner, a gay bodybuilder vampire, lifts it to head level and gives his pet air kisses, whereupon the evil little cur, through the magic of special effects, enthusiastically responds by revealing a mouthful of fangs that a great white shark can only dream about.


	3. Thursday

"Aren't you a nice kitty," warily said Buffy, backing up a few steps in the main hall of the castle to put an armchair between herself and the enormous feline sitting on its haunches and sneering back at her. This yellow-furred cat's lips over its eight-inch long upper fangs continued to lift in pure scorn at the insincere Slayer, only to then change into a truly pleased grin as the young woman standing next to the saber-toothed tiger put her right hand on top of the animal's massive skull to give the head of her newest pet a thorough scratching.

A vexed Buffy had to wait until the prehistoric Smilodon had finished its loud purring, so that she could clear her throat and direct her next comment at Dawn. "Hey, little sis, I'm sure there are a lot of other questions I should be asking you, but I think I'll go with just the obvious…"

"What's that, Buffy?"

"WHY ARE YOU WEARING A LEATHER BIKINI?" screeched the Slayer, sending the echoes of this bouncing off the walls of the main hall.

Proudly glancing down at her nubile body just barely covered in that mentioned outfit, along with a crude necklace made of assorted animal teeth and claws, not to mention a knife strapped to her curvaceous right hip over her bikini bottom, Dawn then looked back up and shrugged, nearly causing a wardrobe malfunction while Buffy's blood pressure soared in reaction to this. Waving in her left hand the long pole with its razor-sharp flint spearhead lashed to the end of that primitive weapon, the younger Summers sister then cheerfully replied, "Oh, that's because puss-puss here feels his proper owner should be dressed up like this, so I just went along with it. Anything else, Buffy? No? Okay then, Zabu, let's go run around the castle a couple of times."

The big cat next to the female in her Savage Land attire then actually looked happy over hearing himself being addressed by his name, with the large feline quickly getting up on all fours and turning around to follow his new owner out through the main doors of the castle. Accompanied by her pet, the girl in her skin-tight jungle princess costume now loped out of sight, with the last thing to be seen of her consisting of a superbly toned rear end flexing under a scrap of fabric that barely covered this young woman's tanned flesh.

Staring blankly ahead at the castle doors, Buffy Summers finally became aware of a truly strange sound coming from somewhere behind herself, the noise of liquid softly dripping. Blinking and then turning around, Buffy now saw at the back of the main hall virtually every male Watcher gathered there and also a few Slayers led by Kennedy, all of these witnesses with their mouths open and hanging tongues drooling copious amounts of saliva.

"QUIT LOOKING AT MY BABY SISTER LIKE THAT!"

* * *

Crossover: Zabu the saber-toothed tiger is from the Marvel Universe by way of the comic book _Ka-Zar the Savage._


	4. Friday

Waiting until the last sound of the stampeding footsteps had died away and it seemed to be safe to venture out into the castle corridor, Dawn Summers poked her head through the gap in the doorway of the utility closet she'd discretely ducked inside, and as she glanced around, the young woman sniggered to herself at the delicious memory of a whole gym full of Slayers running away at their fastest speed, with her own sister at the fore, all of them with their hands desperately clapped over their faces, trying not to breathe or vomit.

As Dawn nudged the closet door further open so that she could push out the rolling janitor's bucket filled to the brim with detergent while also lugging along a shovel and a mop, both ready for work, the Key chortled out loud, "Geez, you'd think, what with them going out every night with their swords and axes and knives and nail files, and using all that to slice demons into gooey chunks, that they'd really have stronger stomachs!"

Heading down the corridor to the gymnasium door, Dawn stopped at this entrance to take out a clothespin from her jeans pocket. Clipping it over her nose to block out the aroma from her impending clean-up job, the girl whose determined campaign to drive her sibling insane seemed to be proceeding nicely now pushed open the door, and Dawn examined her newest pet she'd sneaked into the castle a few minutes ago.

Their attention attracted from nibbling on a punching bag in a hopeful quest for further sustenance, two horned, gazelle-like heads then turned to curiously watch the human pushing her cleaning supplies into the training area. Shifting its equine body, the heads on both ends of this hoofed animal placidly blinked at their latest owner, ignoring the reek of the manure that coated nearly every inch of the gym floor and stank to high heaven. Sighing as she hefted her shovel, Dawn then brightened up a bit, as she nasally commented, "Still, this is all worth it, not just for seeing Buffy run like hell, but you finally found out exactly how a pushmi-pullyu _does _go in the woods!"

* * *

Crossover: That double-headed animal is from the Doctor Doolittle books. And yes, ever since I read them as a kid, I still wonder about this…


	5. Saturday

Lounging on her back, Buffy Summers was recovering from a hard week by having a good gossip over her cellphone with Willow currently at the Cleveland Hellmouth. The Slayer was alone in the most remote sitting room of the castle, a favorite place of hers when she didn't want to be bothered with any company and could just sprawl out on a sofa, to once more simply be a young woman catching up with her friend. Like at this point during one of her infrequent chances of having an extended girl talk with the witch cheerfully absorbed in the tittle-tattle Buffy was telling Willow about the castle's residents, which included the latest scandals, the wildest rumors, and anything else the Los Angeles native felt like maliciously passing along. In return, her red-haired comrade brought Buffy up to date on the often outrageous state of affairs back in the States, at how much hilarious trouble new Slayers and equally-inexperienced Watchers could get into.

"Yeah, mm-mmm…she did _that_? How'd Xander take it? Oh, he's gonna hide out here a few days, right… Okay, I'll pick the perfect time to tease him about it, maybe at dinner- A new spit-take record, for sure-"

At that moment, there came a firm knocking on the closed door to the sitting room, causing Buffy to send an evil look toward this panel, where someone in the outside corridor had just disturbed her privacy, while at the same time speaking into her phone, "Sorry, Wils, someone's at the door - hold on a sec, will you? WHAT?"

After she'd bellowed that while courteously putting her fingers over the phone's mouthpiece, Buffy saw the door swing open and a smirking Dawn standing there in the doorway. The Slayer glared at her sister, at the same time absently rubbing at the spot under her left eye that had started twitching over the last few days every time Buffy had encountered Dawn with her increasingly-zany new pets. The older Summers sister now growled, "What do _you_ want?"

"Grumpy, much?" snickered Dawn, walking into the room and looking around the place, as if she were searching for something. The Key stopped in the middle of the room and sweetly smiled down at her grouchy sibling lying on the sofa, her forgotten cellphone held against Buffy's right ear. "I'm here because I thought I left- Oh, there it is!"

Twisting her head around as Dawn purposefully brushed past the sofa, a suspicious Buffy watched her sister approach an armchair, to then bend down and pick up something round and white that had been lying behind this piece of furniture, previously unnoticed by the Slayer. Dawn now turned around to then head back to the middle of the room, and as her sister went by Buffy, that prone young woman from her spot in the sofa could now see that her sibling was carrying cradled in her arms what looked like nothing else but a volleyball, a large inflated white ball used in that team sport. Her face scrunched up in puzzlement, Buffy called after Dawn now almost at the door, "Hey, Dawnie, why was that thing here in the first place?"

Pausing to call over her shoulder as she stood in the doorway, Dawn answered, "Oh, I just forgot it here the last time I came from a pickup game, and now I'm gonna find who's up for another game."

Her mood softening a little, Buffy said approvingly, "That's nice, honey, seeing you do something so normal like that. I'm really glad about it, not to mention this means you gave up those stupid attempts to keep a pet."

A cheerful goodbye wave was Dawn's only reaction to her sister's statement, with the departing Key finishing off that farewell gesture by reaching out to pull shut the door after her, keeping a tight grip on the volleyball with her other arm, as Dawn now disappeard out into the castle corridor, to hopefully have fun with her friends in their volleyball game. Giving a relieved sigh and further rubbing the now-quiescent muscle under her eye that was with any luck going to relax in the near future, Buffy went back to her phone call. "Okay, Wils, that was just Dawn. Now, where were we?"

Despite all the superhuman abilities that Slayers possessed, x-ray vision wasn't one of them, which meant there was no way that Buffy could see how Dawn's face now bore a truly maniacal grin showing every gleaming tooth on that young girl's face, as the gleeful Key heading down the corridor then picked up her pace, all while still carefully carrying her volleyball.

A couple of minutes later, Dawn entered a crowded conference room elsewhere in the castle, with this area virtually packed with baby Slayers, and Faith herself was at the head of the conference table, expectantly eyeing Buffy's sister as that girl made her way to the only empty chair there, next to the Boston-born Slayer. Plopping down in her seat, Dawn triumphantly held up at head level her spherical burden, as the entire room cheered, Faith included, and then quickly quieted, to eagerly lean forward as those warrior women watched in total fascination while Dawn now gently placed the volleyball on the table. Holding the sphere in place with one hand to keep it from rolling away, Dawn next lightly rubbed her other palm several times back and forth on the top of the ball, while also saying in a coaxing tone, "Up and at 'em, Willis!"

Even though they'd all seen it before, Faith and the other Slayers still blinked at seeing the surface of the volleyball promptly turn from pure white into a more grayish color. It was even more surprising at how two stalks of grey flesh now extruded themselves from the top of the small globe on the table, as Dawn then took her hands away to smugly lean back in her chair and watch what happened next. The stalks continued growing until they were about six inches long, about two inches apart, and the same width through all of their length. At the tips of the stalks, these then bulged into a pair of smaller globes that soon changed into actual…eyes.

Clearly examining Dawn, the eyes remained fixed upon that young woman's beaming face, while on the front of the grey globe, a horizontal slit appeared, to then open and speak through this in a squeaky, delighted voice, "Hi, Dawnie!"

"Good boy, Willis! Now, can you remember what I told you to do?" happily asked Dawn to her new pet from another dimension's fourth planet of the solar system.

The stalks with the eyes at their ends now lowered and rose several times in actual acquiescence, as the little Martian got ready to show off his latest trick. The alien's mouth slit closed for a moment, and then opened again, as Willis started speaking in Buffy Summers' exact voice, as the spherical being with a photographic memory and the ability to reproduce any sound it heard began reciting all that it had listened to in the sitting room where an unsuspecting Slayer had spoken at full unkind length during her phone call.

"…and you know what Faith was wearing today? Honestly, trailer trash would've been too ashamed to put that on, much less strut around the entire castle, enjoying seeing how many guys she could get to walk into the walls at seeing her tits bounce! Not to mention her hair…"

Out of the corner of her eye, Dawn saw Faith look down at her chest in the woman's skin-tight purple tube top with its glittering rhinestones, to then lift up her head with its now-set face, as the dark Slayer then brought her hands together to ominously crack her knuckles, while Willis joyously burbled on and on and on…

* * *

Crossover: Willis (no relation to Bruce) is from Robert A. Heinlein's _Red Planet._


	6. Sunday

The four people standing in an incredulous line on the side lawn had to tilt their upper bodies back to see all the way up to the top of the gigantic furry ball resting next to the Scottish castle, since that hairy creature lacking any features was currently about the same size as the entire stone building. Actually, as Buffy numbly thought over the deafening cooing sounds of delight being broadcast by this enormous being, that…that…thing looked like it was _still_ growing! Feeling the tic under her left eye begin rapidly twitching, Buffy managed to gather her wits long enough to turn around and glare at the young woman next to her gaping upwards, with a dumbfounded Dawn's mouth hanging open almost all the way to her belt buckle, just like Xander and Andrew further on were also doing in their total shock.

Yelling at the top of her lungs, both to express her absolute displeasure over the last five minutes and also to be heard over the sounds of that happy creature, Buffy roared at her sister, "I TOLD YOU, NO MORE PETS! THIS IS WHY!" As she finished her rant, Buffy thrust a quivering forefinger at the colossal animal before her in its brown fur, just if she needed to direct anyone's attention to it. Like this wasn't already detectable by satellite photography.

Coming down from her panicked hop from the blast of sisterly haranguing right into her ear, Dawn twisted her head to glower at Buffy, with the Key then snapping back in her own raised voice, "It's not my fault! I saw the episode enough times to know better than to feed it! Blame Xander, he just _had_ to come along and test his great idea on my Fuzzykins!"

Buffy switched her patented Glare of Death past Dawn to where Xander had developed his own betrayed expression on his face at the younger Summers sister's shifting the culpability onto him. Huffily shouting over the noisy creature in front of them all, that one-eyed man defended himself, "Hey, Buffster, nobody could have expected this! I mean, I had the number one expert in the whole world on that thing along with me, and Andrew couldn't really think of any reason why not to try it!"

At the end of that last statement, Xander reached out to grab the arm of the younger male next to him that had been sidling away in a fruitless attempt at escape, dragging Andrew in front of the other man to hold him there in a last-ditch effort to shield his Xander-bits from the furious Slayer.

An expendable Andrew had his mouth go dry due to looking right into Buffy's face madly going into spasms that promised the utter doom of all there. Finally, the former member of a Sunnydale supervillain team and complete Star Trek geek managed to stutter out, "Y-y-yes, in all the episodes of the various series, from TOS and DS9, where they showed Gerrold's creation, there's absolutely _nothing _to predict this! Even the animated episode didn't have exactly this kind of reaction, so that there was absolutely no reason to think it'd be a genuinely bad idea to feed a Twinkie to a tribble!"

* * *

Crossover: Ah, yes, that delightful, ravenous, ever-pregnant alien creature known as a tribble is from you-know-where, including the following episodes:

Star Trek: The Original Series: "The Trouble With Tribbles"

Star Trek: The Animated Series: "More Tribbles, More Troubles"

Deep Space Nine: "Trials and Tribble-ations"


	7. Monday

"Listen, Dawn, I don't - uh! - want to be a total bitch about this, but - uh! - I thought we had a deal that - uh! - you wouldn't use your Keyness to - uh! - bring any more weird pets here - UH!" Buffy paused to recover from a particularly violent facial convulsion that slammed her left eye shut and brought up the corner of her mouth on that side of her face to bare the Slayer's gritted teeth.

Sipping from her straw stuck deep into her iced soft drink, a puzzled Dawn leaned back in her chair at the rec room table, considering this. Giving an impatient Buffy her most innocent look, the younger woman protested, "Hey, big sis, I swear on Giles' dustiest books that I haven't fetched another pet here, just like you asked. Or, should I say, begged, right down on your knees?"

Buffy hastily slapped her left palm against this side of her face and she went through a titanic struggle to keep that part of her body from undergoing another furious spasm, glaring with her other eye at her sniggering sister. Still keeping her left hand in place, the Slayer half-turned, to indignantly point with her other hand at the circular table at the far corner of the rec room. There, a happy crowd of warrior women were clustered around that small table and its two occupants seated on either side of this piece of furniture, cheering and shouting words of encouragement to them both, which at this moment included Faith and her opponent in the middle of a hard-fought arm-wrestling match. From the looks of things, the brunette Slayer's challenger was winning.

"_Well_?" snarled Buffy, whirling around to confront Dawn now ignoring her sibling to instead watch in total fascination from across the room at the squat creature there in his chair at the other table, with this being covered with reddish-orange fur all over his body, a squashed nose that was partially hidden by an upper lip curled back up in glee that revealed massive yellow teeth, and a lanky, extra-long arm that seemed to be made from steel cable, as proven by slowly but surely forcing Faith's straining arm down towards the tabletop.

An instant later, the Slayer's hand slammed against the surface of this furniture, as the awed audience then exploded with delight and crowded around the competitors. Just before Dawn lost sight of Faith, that older woman had a wide grin on her beautiful face as she reached out to genially punch the shoulder of the winner of the first really good match that the Boston native had in _years._

"Hey! I told you, no more pets!" growled Buffy, diverting Dawn's attention back to her sister. Smirking at someone whose grip on her temper was rapidly fraying, the Key hesitated, trying to find the specific words that would finally send Buffy over the edge. *Yep, that'll do it…*

Calmly looking up at the red-faced Slayer, Dawn casually informed her, "Oh, that's not a pet. He's a person."

A boggled Buffy stared at Dawn in total incomprehension, until something at last snapped in the blonde woman's mind, causing her mouth to open wide and let loose a loud shriek that cut like a knife through all other sounds in the rec room, "THAT'S A BIG MONKEY!"

In the sudden quiet, Dawn sadly gazed at her sister swaying on her feet and having a near-continuous tic under this woman's left eye, and she then sighed, "Buffy, you really shouldn't have said that about the Librarian."

As Buffy gaped back at Dawn, the Slayer now abruptly felt a hand remarkably like a leathery glove clap itself onto her right shoulder, accompanied by the being right behind her now uttering in a tone of pure menace, "Oook."

* * *

Crossover: And so, Buffy Summers becomes the latest person to find out why you don't use the m-word around Terry Pratchett's most hilarious Discworld character.


	8. Tuesday 2

Blearily awakened from her deep slumber by the odd brightness in her bedroom, easily discerned even through her closed eyelids, Dawn Summers yawned, and then she finally opened her eyes while still flat on her back in her bed.

She was looking right up at a fluffy cloud in a bright blue morning sky.

Instantly sitting straight up in her bed, Dawn clutched the bedsheets to herself, and she stared around slack-jawed at her surroundings. Instead of the familiar confines of her sleeping chamber in that woman's apartment in the Scottish castle, she and her bed had been unexpectedly relocated to the middle of a green pasture in front of an oddly-familiar road…

Abruptly twisting around on the mattress to look behind herself, Dawn stared at a small hill, over which the younger Summers sister could see the tops of the towers of the IWC's headquarters, which meant she was right at the entrance of the main road leading to the castle. What next caught her attention was an evident explanation of her current location and situation.

Vertically attached to the back of her bed's headboard by duct tape was a long wooden stick which had a very large piece of stiff, white paper stapled to the top end of the stick. There were currently two sentences printed in black ink on this placard attached to the stick, in enormous block letters meant to be seen from as far away as possible, all in the extremely recognizable (if somewhat shaky) feminine handwriting of a certain short blonde:

HI! I'M DAWN!

_**PLEASE**_ KIDNAP ME!

Descending from the bottom of the last sentence inscribed on the placard was a drawn line ending in an arrow point that would have unequivocally indicated a certain sleeping young woman.

Falling back into her bed while shrieking with laughter, Dawn joyously wrapped her arms around herself and continued her hilarity, until she finally ran out of breath. Wiping away tears of mirth with the edge of her pillowcase, Dawn beamed upwards at the heavens with their promise of a new day, enjoying it all, until she suddenly yawned.

Deciding to catch a few more winks before things livened up today due to some evil wizard, aliens from outer space, and mole men from the center of the earth digging towards the surface, or whatever combination thereof, of these beings coming along to abduct her, Dawn Summers now pulled the bedsheets over her head, and as the Key slipped back into blissful slumber, that woman now drowsily thought, *Good thing Buffy finally caved. She really wouldn't have enjoyed next week at all, if I had to keep up the pressure. Still, my main babysitter back in Sunnydale would've been totally proud of me, and it took a lot to impress Anyanka the vengeance demon.*


End file.
